


A Wordless Ode

by xannish



Category: Kushiel's Dart
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-21
Updated: 2010-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:50:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xannish/pseuds/xannish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Delaunay finds a surprise in his study, and an even more surprising depth of feeling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Wordless Ode

**Author's Note:**

  * For [boywonder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boywonder/gifts).



            Even only half-revealed, as it was as he stood half-robed at Anafiel’s study window, Alcuin’s marque was beautiful. Anafiel had known it would be from the moment Tielhard had showed him the sketch. The marquist was a master of his art, and he would allow naught but a masterpiece to pass from his hands. It twined down that long, lovely back and disappeared beneath the linen wrap that curled around his narrow hips in a way that made the elder D’Angeline ache with longing. Yet he could not look at the design without the sting of a different pain, the knowledge that in this, he had judged wrong, had _read_ wrong, and the boy had earned every inch of that marque in silent endurance of a fate he loathed. Silent endurance he claimed was for Anafiel himself. _Dear Alcuin. Dear, fool Alcuin._ Perhaps this was what Phedre felt, pleasure so sharp and bittersweet it could not be told from agony.

            Anafiel must have made some noise (or perhaps it was the lack of noise, a catch of breath, a pause too-long) for Alcuin half-turned, peering over his shoulder with those infinite eyes veiled by silver lashes, and again Anafiel was startled by the depth of the need he saw there.

            “Alcuin,” he breathed, and saw the light of the answering smirk touch Alcuin’s eyes before his lips. Slowly, Alcuin reached down to the simple folds that held the wrap about his waist and loosened them, revealing another scarce inch of his flesh, but still veiling the base where it wound to a point at the foot of his spine, not quite allowing a glimpse of those flawless buttocks.

            “Yes, my lord?” the silver-haired boy asked coyly, lowering his lashes demurely while his eyes met Anafiel’s with a far less subservient challenge. Again Anafiel felt a surge of desire. Whether he liked the path or not, the boy had learned the ways of Naamah well.

            “You needn’t call me that.”

            “No, my lord,” Alcuin agreed, and this time there was a flash of teeth at his brief grin.

            “Alcuin,” he warned, but could not put his heart into even play-chastisement. Instead, he rose from his chair and crossed the room in three paces. He drew Alcuin into his arms, and Alcuin gave no resistance, cuddling himself against his chest with a small sigh, as if from a relief of pain.

            The linen wrap slipped from his hips and pooled on the floor between them. As Anafiel had suspected, he wore nothing beneath. “Are you done for the night, my lord?” he asked, voice soft and breathy.

            “I scarcely think I could keep my concentration after this. The ledgers can wait.” The nobleman trailed his fingers down Alcuin’s back, tracing the lines of his marque without looking at them.

            “Phèdre’s still awake and about the house, but I thought…” Alcuin trailed off, and his fingers moved up to unlace Anafiel’s shirt. “I thought you might like some company.” He kissed the taller man’s chest, and Anafiel found my fingers twined into the moonlight silk of his hair. Anafiel wanted him. _Needed_ him, and Alcuin knew that he needed him, damn the boy.

            “I was working,” Anafiel tried to defend, but Alcuin’s lips twisted and he rolled his eyes.

            “You’re lucky if you’re in bed before dawn these days, Anafiel. Shh. Don’t protest, I know what you’ll say. I know it’s important, but _so are you._ How can you be at your peak if you don’t let yourself unwind?”

            “Alcuin…”

            “ _Antonius,_ ” Alcuin countered, his voice burning.

            Anafiel abruptly shoved him away. “Where did you get that name?”

            Alcuin stared up at him, eyes like rare black opals with fire at their core. “You taught me well. Well enough to learn what it is that I am seeking. Well enough to see how the pieces we have been gathering fit.”

            Anafiel drew in his breath and turned from him, desire quashed by the fury of this betrayal. He strode to the window without meeting the other’s eyes and stood, looking out over the courtyard but seeing nothing but a stinging blur.

            For a long time, there was silence. Long enough that Anafiel wondered if Alcuin had used his remarkable gift for stealth and slipped out. Yet it was Alcuin’s voice which broke the silence, clear and unquestioning: “You loved him.”

            “What do you know of it?”

            “Only tales, I admit, but I know well what it means to be in love with one’s master.”

            The bitterness in his student’s voice startled Anafiel enough that he turned back. Alcuin’s eyes caught his eyes and held them. For the first time, Anafiel saw the strength there of a man, not a boy. An equal, for all that Anafiel had shaped him. “Alcuin,” he repeated, for he who had both made his name and destroyed it with his skill for words was now at a loss for them.

            “I love you,” Alcuin said, and his eyes did not leave Anafiel’s. Indeed, Anafiel could not have broken the gaze if he had wished it. “I love you, Anafiel, whether you will it or not, whether you return it or not. I share your bed and I share your house, and I love you, _my lord_. I have always loved you, and I always will, until my last breath. Even if you will give me nothing else, do not deny me my love.”

            Then Anafiel had crossed the room again, and was taking the boy in his arms once more, but this time he did not melt against him, but was rigid in his grasp, practically trembling with emotion. “Do not think I do not know what I say, Anafiel,” he whispered. “If I could write my own ode to you, I would have. I’ve _tried._ ”

            He might have said more, but Anafiel lifted his chin and pressed his mouth to Alcuin’s, smothering his words in a kiss. And in this, too, he found Alcuin’s was angry passion, need scarcely tempered by his training in the ways of the flesh. It was _Alcuin_ who drew Anafiel’s shirt open and pushed it from his shoulders, _Alcuin_ whose hot kisses were coals on his chest, but it was Anafiel who pushed him back and turned him, pressing him against the chaise that stood near the window and bent him over upon it. Anafiel unbuttoned his breeches as he leaned over him, pressing himself between the other’s legs. Alcuin was hard against the cushion, and Anafiel heard him gasp as I again ran his fingers down his back.

            “Anafiel…” Alcuin breathed, and Anafiel chuckled, stepping back and opening the drawer of his desk, drawing out the pot of faintly scented oil secreted away for some such occasion.

            “Do you want this?” Anafiel asked, drawing oiled fingers down Alcuin’s spine but pausing just below the base of his marque.

            “Yes,” he breathed. “ _Yes_ , curse you.”

            Anafiel laid his cheek against Alcuin’s shoulder-blade as his finger pressed in.

            He opened for him beautifully, moaning into every touch, needy for it as Anafiel thrust his finger in and out, then two fingers, pressing deeper, aiming for that knot of pleasure deep within him, and Alcuin arched his hips back against him. There were tears in Alcuin’s wordless pleas, and Anafiel could do nothing but succumb.

            Anafiel oiled himself thoroughly, and lingered at his student’s entrance only for a moment before he thrust himself deep, sheathing himself in one fluid stroke.

            Alcuin cried Anafiel’s name in a sob, but Anafiel whispered Alcuin’s name as a caress as his hands roved his body, combed through his hair, soothed and touched and teased. Alcuin’s buttocks writhed against his hips, and Anafiel slowly withdrew before thrusting into him again, and again, and he was lost in the pleasure and the way the other body moved against his, an instrument tuned to he alone… or was Alcuin the player and he the instrument? Lines blurred, and everything was music, a duet of flesh in the symphony of the night.

            It was impossible to say who spent first, only that when at last they crested and came to rest, Anafiel’s hand was wrapped around Alcuin’s length and Alcuin’s flesh was still wrapped about his.

            “Alcuin…” Anafiel whispered, breathing against his ear.

            He felt the boy shudder beneath him. “Yes, my lord?” he asked, in an echo of his previous playful tone.

            “I love you too.”


End file.
